This article truly exists & yet I still disbelieve its existence. I almost posted this on September 11, ’cause it’s that much o’ a god damn disaster, but then I needed mo’ time to collect my thoughts so that this wasn’t a rambling mess (it probably still is, though).

The writers o’ 1st Web Design seem to be the kind o’ amusing bunch who have a li’l cute knowledge o’ web design—HTML, CSS, & how to buy already-made WordPress themes so that their websites look just like a’least a dozen others—but want to think o’ themselves as experts in web design. They do this the way all narcissistic dolts do: they simply call anything that requires actual thought not important & ‘stead emphasize abstract, motivational pap that doesn’t actually mean anything. Nor do they e’er defend this pap logically; they simply assert it with that obnoxious business-street style that fans o’ Shark Tank love—’gain, people who like to pretend they’re smart without having any actual smarts, since actually smart people know that logic & evidence, not boisterous language, makes smart ideas.

I don’t know where to start with this article, since I’m not sure what parts actually count. ¿Should I include the 1st paragraph that oddly has larger text than all o’ the rest & spews nothing but fortune-cookie filler in almost English?

¿Should I start with the 1st regular-size paragraph & its own e’en-mo’-bizarre psalm?

For me this 2015 is the chance to be foolish again after being bruised by business failures (lessons).

¿So the author’s admitting that they’re fools & failures? ¿Then what makes them qualified to teach me? ¿’Cause they’re learning “lessons” from their failures? Based on that logic, then every homeless person & every dead-end worker should be qualified to write this. ¿Why aren’t I reading their work ‘stead? (That’s an authentic question I’m asking myself now.)

They then go on to quote ‘nother bizarre quote, this time from Steve Jobs—the go to guru for people who like the style o’ profundity, but don’t want to go through the tedium o’ the substance:

“Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish.”

See, it’s profound ’cause it’s vague ‘nough to have multiple meanings, making it useless as actual advice since it’s impossible to e’en confirm what the advice is. ¿Is it asking the reader to both stay hungry & stay foolish or saying that staying hungry makes one stay foolish? Think o’ all the wonderful mysteries we would lose if Steve Jobs bothered to use proper English.

¿What relevance does this have to which programming language I should learn? Nothing.

But we do get to learn some fascinating insights into 1st Web Designer’s work:

As you have noticed here at 1stWebDesigner, we don’t go into teaching hardcore programming or anywhere deep in graphic design (but we care a lot about converting and usable websites).

“As you know, we don’t teach anything that’s actually useful—we let the other sites do that.” It is good to see that they care a lot ’bout what sounds like the middle-aged yuppie version o’ some drug fetish & usability—despite having li’l discussion o’ how to implement the latter.

However, we have noticed the main reason why most web designers don’t succeed is because they fail to see their freelance web design venture as a business. They think that if they learn good skills and the right web programming languages, clients will come magically.

Part o’ me wants to say “Please elaborate on this bald assertion,” but the other part o’ me wants to say, “¿Why are you saying all o’ this in an article based on learning programming languages? ¿Is this article actually trolling me by giving me something completely different from advertised?

Consider this – Most people despise salesmen, most especially a used car salesman. A lot of people always cast them in a bad light – opportunists.

That’s probably ’cause they’re ‘mong the top o’ the list o’ occupations most likely to be filled by sociopaths—probably on account o’ involving all o’ that opportunism. Kind o’ like the ugly opportunism 1st Web Designer used by giving this article a name that’s irrelevant with its actual content, also known as “false advertising,” also known as “lying,” also know as that thing that shitty people do. That’s why you’re looked @ as shitty people: ’cause you’re shitty people.

But why do you think sales people often get paid the most in the company?

‘Cause they’re sociopathic opportunists. Asking why the person who screws other people to help themselves succeeds is like asking why the cat beats the mouse. The very definition o’ success is getting mo’ for oneself than others. Obviously the best way to get mo’ customers than other businesses would be to get mo’ customers for oneself & less for the others; obviously the best way to get mo’ money is to get mo’ money from customers & put in less o’ one’s own resources, whereas customers want mo’ money for themselves & mo’ quality, which requires mo’ resources from the company. See, that’s kind o’ how this “competition” thing works.

Your entire company should be considered your branding department.

1st Web Designer clearly supports such antisocial behavior, since they believe that content creation should be almost entirely—this quote says entirely—subsumed by propaganda (“marketing” in business terms). Essentially, they support selling shit as if ’twere gold. If they’re surprised by why people may find this antisocial, annoying, & just bad in general, they’re clearly deluded. Yes, shake our fists @ those mean ol’ jealous consumers ’cause they happen to not like people who admit that they care ’bout nothing but taking as much as they can from them without e’en bothering to develop the skills to create content that is actually worth money.

See, smart businesses don’t say this shit out-loud ’cause they know it’ll piss off customers if they do so, & that might cause them to lose said customers. ¿How can 1st Web Designer claim to have the business finesse to get customers when they themselves outright say aloud how li’l they respect their customers that they’re willing to cut corners as much as possible? It’s clear from this article that 1st Web Designer would be a shitty business to buy products from.

In short, this article is the worst advertisement e’er.

The writer goes on to talk ’bout obvious shit like how businesses need to think ’bout how they spend their money (‘Less one’s a sheltered rich person, every adult needs to think ’bout finances. That’s like saying one needs to eat to stay ‘live) & hypocritical shit ’bout needing to “stand out from the crowd” from a site that uses the same template as Web Design Depot¹ & uses phrases like “stand out from the crowd.”

& we’re still not talking ’bout which programming language I should use. In fact, this article’s content clearly hints that the writers consider such a question superfluous. I can’t emphasize how corrupt &/or incompetent they are.

¡& how pleased I am to have run into this article after searching for something else entirely on Google! For as much as Google brags ’bout their wonderful search algorithms & how they penalize keyword abuse, they sure don’t punish cocksuckers like these sites ‘nough, since they’re still playing the system. See, this is why I hate these websites so much. One can’t say that I just shouldn’t read them, ’cause they truly get in the way o’ my ability to find useful content. My life would literally be better if this site ne’er existed.

So to answer 1st Web Designer, this is why people hate salespeople like you: the same reason they hate mosquitoes. Please exterminate this shitty website & do something mo’ productive. Surely you guys have some valuable skills–¿like holding road signs, maybe?

& enough with the superfluous images filled with cheap icon clipart you ripped off from some free clipart site. ‘Cause nothing says “professional” like cheap art I’ve seen a million times already. Way to “stand out.”

They continue to not talk ’bout what programming language I should use or programming @ all for paragraphs, but they do harken back to classic RPGs by spelling the strengths o’ smaller web agencies (¿who cares?) in all-caps.

I also find it strange that they assume small businesses are faster than larger ones, despite the larger ones having mo’ people, & thus are able to better divide the work. Maybe they think web design companies operate by the square-cube law.

It’s your opportunity and if you are true professional, you love what you do and you love to do the work you are proud of.

I would describe professional work as work that isn’t shitty, personally. “I don’t care whether my website works well or not, ¡but I demand you squeel with glee as you’re making it!”

You can just ask a friend or a contractor to help out with the things that aren’t your expertise. The key, however, is still the fact that you can move forward fast.

¡Just mooch off others! ¡Exploit! ¡Exploit! Just so long as you get their money now, it doesn’t matter how many people you fuck o’er & piss off.

I guess they truly do take after Steve Jobs.

(Laughs.) Under “be personal”:

You know you are awesome and you will do everything to please the client and willingly take the extra mile to satisfy him.

Finally someone cut to the fucking chase ’bout what this is all ’bout: jerking people off.

Clients love speed, quick turnover, and they love to see their agencies #deliver. Are you one of these agencies?

No ’cause I prefer to actually do work rather than dick round with insipid hash tags on Twitter. & I think clients also like their work not half-assed, too.

What technologies, programming languages to use?

¡O, fuck! ¡Finally we’ve gotten to the actual point o’ the article! ¡& Only half a page in! Great job: you’d fail a fucking middle school essay assignment.

I love how 1 o’ the most popular questions for them is “How do I learn web design?” Indeed, ¿What is this studying concept I’ve heard so much ’bout? I hear it oft involves books & such.

Their answer’s rather stupid:

You always want to find the next great tool or the shiny app of a new programming language that will help you have a competitive edge in the web industry and show that you are true ambassador of new technologies.

This is unfortunate for those who have higher goals—becoming the Prime Minister o’ New Technologies, for instance. For once they make it sound harder than it is, having to learn new programming languages all the time. I don’t e’en think they make new programming languages that oft.

Ruby on Rails web application framework, Ghost, Craft content management system built with PHP and C, Java, C++ for mobile app creation are super trendy right now.

“Look @ me totally name-check all these new trends like the hip-hopping turtle’s PJs that I am.”

Yeah, all the kiddies nowadays are building websites with C & C++. Perchance, ¿are those examples o’ the “new programming languages” they spoke ’bout earlier? ¿Couldn’t these whippersnappers suffice with websites build with good ol’ COBOL? (Yes, I’m sure there are real websites made with COBOL. Shut up.)

Do you want to spent countless hours coding and designing, or you want to run a web design business?

“¿Do you want to do productive work or just lazily leech off others?” This is, indeed, a mutually-exclusive dichotomy: I’m glad that 1st Web Designer let me in on the secret that no business e’er does coding or design or any o’ that shit the vulgar masses do.

There is nothing wrong with being a hardcore programmer or true artist, but we are here to educate you about having a bigger impact, scaling, and helping clients to create a CONVERTING website.

“There’s nothing wrong with programmers or artists, but they’re just not as cool as our hip converts.”

Still, I’m happy to see a reference to my favorite TM from Pokémon Red, Blue, & Yellow, “CONVERTING”; I always teach it to my Blastoise just before I fight Sabrina. That, added with the random all-caps, is borderline Engrish by, I’m sure, someone for whom English is a 1st language. That’s an accomplishment. ¿Is the website still converting (¿Converting what? ¿Itself?) after it’s already been made? ¿Wouldn’t “converted website” make mo’ sense? Actually, ¿wouldn’t a phrase that actually means something concretely make e’en mo’ sense?

Unfortunately, they still haven’t actually educated me on what I’m sure are immensely arduous skills to learn & not made-up bullshit to hide the fact that they are clueless.

Programmers will solve technological issues and designers will make everything pretty but a 1st Web Designer will know the basics of programming and designing but will look beyond that by helping clients create an effective, converting website.

A “1st Web Designer” is apparently a member o’ their Kool-Aid cult.

I’m glad to see that Programmers only solve the issues that exist in programs that were apparently handed down to the world by the Flying Spaghetti Monster & that designers just “make everything pretty.” Members o’ their cult, however, don’t bother with such frivolous brainy shit—brainy if one thinks multiplication tables are confusing—but look “beyond” such pedestrian nonsense & actually create the websites, presumably from sticks & hay, since obviously programming & design have nothing to do with it.

¿Why was it “CONVERTING” before, but now just regular ol’ “converting”? I’ve ne’er heard o’ a term that loses power as it’s used.

¡Ha, ha, ha! ¡Not only is their next picture mo’ arbitrary bullshit spewed by some random nobody, the comment under it doesn’t e’en get it right! “Duh, coding, design—they’re the same thing basically.”

What does creating a converting website means?

I’m glad to see them describing this term after already using it 3 times. Clearly 1st Web Designer are using postmodern chronology, which only makes their articles richer ‘pon a 2nd reading.

It means you know about internet marketing. You know about A/B testing. You know what drives sales, how to set up a mailing list, and you how to create a landing page that is beautiful as well as converts visitors to sales. [emphasis mine.]

It’s good to see that the difference ‘tween members o’ 1st Web Designer’s cult & boring ol’ programmers is figuring out how to test & send emails–which clearly no programmer could figure out.

Sadly, I’m not as capable: I don’t e’en know how someone would “how” creating a landing page, much less how to do it myself. In fact, my linguistically-inferior mind didn’t e’en know “how” could be used as a verb.

I know it’s petty o’ me—& I am petty—but this is the kind o’ shit my mind focuses on when I read dreck like this. & I can’t just read something else, ’cause I’m ‘fraid o’ what worse I’ll find back in that Google search. I ought to just say, “Fuck it: I’ll just stick with PHP. Whatever.” PHP’s inconsistent & vague data types are nothing compared to trudging through the wasteland o’ vague & trite buzzwords—& I’m not e’en good @ programming.

You will not let technology stand in your way.

You will break the laws o’ physics. “I don’t care if you can’t handle a quadrillion animated GIFs o’ my cat, Patches, server—¡you’re fucking doing it!”

It must be fun to be so deluded as to think one’s magic mind beams o’ optimism can surpass any o’ those nerdy technological & design concerns. Such can only come from one who is so pampered & sheltered from mean ol’ reality by invisible servants. This is why such boisterous clowns who bark ’bout only results mattering–the scientific equivalent o’ saying that only conclusions matter, not the facts on which they ordinarily rely–are not savvy, but irrational. It’s no wonder the US’s economy’s so shitty when people so unreasonable as to refuse to acknowledge objective reality are idolized as the ideal businesspeople.

Your client won’t be technologically smart and that’s why he needs you.

¿Why? We’ve already established that neither the target audience nor the writers themselves have any technological knowledge, either. Here’s how I’d imagine the conversation going:

“Duh, ¿can you program the WordPress in Visual Basic? I could make some pretty nifty programs using my Nintendo when I was 17.”

“Duh… OK… ¡So long as it’s effective, efficient, converting, energizing, & #getstheshitdoneson!”

“Duh… ¿What’s any o’ that mean?”

“It means you understand what makes a website that leaves an impact.”

“Duh… ¿What’s that mean?”

We must end this conversation prematurely or else risk crashing your browser due to a memory shortage caused by an endless loop.

However, your selling points aren’t – “I will apply the latest web design trends, use Ruby on Rails, and create a responsive great looking website for you!”

Well, I’d hope so. The last thing I’d want are grammatically-incorrect selling points.

But a’least they’re classy ‘nough to use both the English & Spanish forms o’ quotation.

Your selling point is to understand why the client is hiring you, what results he is looking for and then, deliver him the results with your skills.

Marketing Bimbo Golden Rule: spew too-dumb-to-live-obvious broad statements as if ‘splaining the ingredients for the potion o’ youth. ¡Woah! ¡Hold on now! You’re telling me that when someone hires me to do something for them… ¿I should do the thing they want me to do? No wonder I ne’er succeeded: when my client asked me to design a website for them, I’d always just give them sheets o’ paper that talked ’bout what an awesome website is ‘stead o’ doing all that gross programming & design they wanted me to do—¡Ugh!

& it’s good to see that programmers & regular web designers are apparently too dumb to understand clients telling them what they want in English. It’s a good thing that 1st Web Designer is elaborating on all o’ these occult skills & not just spewing forth empty, arrogant disses gainst professions that have actually proven themselves to have skills that actually exist. ¿Where would they find the time to do so when they’re too busy regurgitating the same empty phrases o’er & o’er ‘gain till I want to bash my skull in?

You might not use the sexiest JavaScript plugin…

¡Augh! ¿You mean I have to fuck FuckItJS ‘stead o’ Grunt? ¡Gross!

Your client just wants results and he wants them fast. He doesn’t care how they are achieved.

“Since your client’s too stupid to know what good or bad web design is, just cut corners as much as possible & flee with the phat loot before they find out that that table o’ product info was just a PNG you put in the middle o’ the page.”

We are proposing you a world of delegation, automation with great tools, so you can focus on solving difficult problems by using your designers and business knowledge. This is the way of a professional. This is the principle we embrace.

[Note: in the original article, “great tools” was a link to 1 o’ their own articles that opened in a new window, ’cause ‘course 1st Web Designer are those kind o’ assholes.]

Nothing’s mo’ professional than basing a client’s branding on a template already used by many, just as how professional businesses always just get their logos from clipart websites. I’m glad to see that they’ll help me “stand out from the crowd” by not putting any individual thought into my site’s programming or design, but will ‘stead just “delegate” & use “automation” for everything. They’ve certainly solved the “difficult problems” o’ how they can get paid without doing any work.

Despite my low standards, I think I’m going to skip the shilling o’ some vapid business cronies I care nothing ’bout. I ate too recently to watch the marketing equivalent o’ Super Hornio Bros.

After all o’ that—& it goes on fore’er—they ‘splain how one should learn the basics so they can figure out how to hire other people to actually do the work. That this already requires quite a lot o’ money is ne’er mentioned as a particular problem for our “1st Web Designer.” Presumably, our “1st Web Designer” must be born to a rich family willing to shell out so much money to start a whole business or have already earned money from different work for a’least a couple years. That or you rack up loans & hope you don’t fail—immensely responsible advice to give to inexperienced people.

So they finally get to the list o’ programming languages you should use & only 1.5 out o’ the 4 given @ best are actually programming languages. HTML could hardly be considered “programming” language; as its name indicates, it’s a hypertext, content language. It has no logic, just premade markup. CSS is a gray area: it does have some minimal cascading logic to it, & is beginning to come closer to programming with the introduction o’ variables, as well as the additions SASS & LESS add. WordPress is a content management system that can heavily be changed through the actual programming language that is PHP (¿Why isn’t it mentioned?), but is not a language in itself any mo’ than Mad Libs is a language ’cause it allows you to play round with English words & sentences to theoretically infinite levels.

But the platinum-seller is the 1st entry:

Adobe Photoshop for web design creation

I had to stop & think for a few minutes ’cause I couldn’t e’en think o’ what to say. I still can’t believe this was typed. This makes this writer fall from merely vapid ditziness to outright coma-level vegetable-mindedness. E’en my grandmother who only uses her computer to surf the internet & play Solitaire knows that Photoshop isn’t a god damn programming language. That’s ’bout as accurate as calling Tetris a programming langauge. ¡Super Mario World is mo’ a programming language than fucking Photoshop!

¿& who designs websites with Photoshop? I think you technically can using some obscure feature, but it’s certain to be e’en shittier than the puke spewed from those ol’ “Jimmy’s 1st Make Me a Website” disks that came in cereal boxes. ¿Do they mean planning how the website will look when it’s actually designed? E’en then just dicking round in Photoshop wouldn’t be sufficient. You still need to know what you can do & how you plan to do it & how different screen sizes or interactions will effect it. It’d be specially bad if one uses WordPress themes, since one—probably, since there’s no mention o’ PHP, which is a vital part o’ all themes—isn’t expected to actually look @ the theme’s code & therefore figure out how much one can change without changing the source code.

You will become irreplaceable. It is true that clients can find another good designer or programmer much easier but they will have difficulty finding a professional who understands what they need and will create a converting website.

What laughable arrogance coming from someone dumber ’bout the internet than an infant. Yes, it’s much harder to find people with concrete abilities than it is to find people with skills that are abstract meaninglessness—including the skill to plan to do something in the future. As for knowing what clients need: if the client needs a website @ all, then they’ll need it to fucking work, which means that one needs the concrete skills to ensure it works; I’d think that the people with knowledge o’ the technology ‘hind how websites work would have a greater understanding o’ what the client needs than knowing how to hire other people to do the work. If clients are smart ‘nough to figure out how to hire some douche who just hires other people, they should be smart ‘nough to just hire the people who actually know how to do the work themselves. This is ‘specially the case if the “professional” makes themselves look as unprofessional & incompetent as these guys. ¿Would you trust someone dumb ‘nough to think Photoshop is a programming language, cheap ‘nough to rely on templates & free clipart, & callous ‘nough to pooh-pooh the objective reality o’ how technology works in favor o’ empty rhetoric that literally doesn’t exist except as noises from their lips to know how to make sure your website works? I sure as fuck wouldn’t. I’d trust my 7-year-ol’ nephew to make me a website before I’d trust these hacks.

It’s ironic that 1st Web Designer would have the spine to call anyone else superfluous when they’re the most superfluous website in the world. Search the internet & tell me you can’t find the exact same shit they do—including their site’s design, which is literally based on a theme already used by other websites? The writing is nothing but clichés already written by a million other unoriginal narcissists on the web. That’s the greatest irony o’ these marketing hacks: for as much as they talk ’bout efficiency & eliminating superfluousness, their work is the most inefficient, superfluous filler in the world. While the web would break down without the programming ‘hind it, it’d be improved if 1st Web Designer & its ilk disappeared.

Then, predictably, they shill their own shit, since they have no shame, no principles, no redeeming factors whatsoever. I’m utterly depressed @ the potent mix o’ idiocy & ugliness 1st Web Designer exhibits.

OK, after downing a bottle o’ booze, I read ’bout their cheap web design course made for people allergic to putting any effort into anything & who just want to be tricked into thinking they’re great after a few hours o’ dicking round:

In 9 hours of video content, you will learn how to build website from scratch in Photoshop and then convert your PSD design to HTML5 and CSS3. Finally, we will also teach you how to use Bootstrap magic where you will learn how to convert website to fully responsive and functional WordPress website.

Frame this paragraph: this is the waving flag o’ mediocrity. This is how the word “decadent” came to mean “rich ditzes” ‘stead o’ just decay. In fact, I think they should replace that #getthatshitdoneson hashtag with #decayingbourgeoisie, but that would require that they can spell those words—or use their “get it done” skills to find someone else to do it for them.

OK, 1st… “build [sic] website from scratch in Photoshop” is hilarious—& not just ’cause o’ the typo. That’s like describing drawing as “drawing from scratch.” What, ¿do you think your readers are so mindless that they need a template to help them make still images? All you need is to drag rectangles. & if the plan involves mo’ detail—& the website, in fact, is mo’ detailed—then the tutorial could ne’er help—if we assume that this teaches them how to make an original website, which, now that I think ’bout it, we shouldn’t—’cause it’ll be different. That’s like making a “How to Write a Novel from Scratch” tutorial. Either it’ll be so broad that it’s useless or it’ll be so specific that it’s authorized plagiarism.

Which makes me realize that these writers’ ant-sized brains can’t comprehend that art requires actual individual thought. You can’t teach it with a step-by-step guide. (This applies to business, too—elsewise everyone without a conscience would be a successful businessperson; however, they write a blog that relies on WordPress themes, so they clearly aren’t successful businesspeople, either). They don’t understand art². They don’t understand anything. They’re clueless. This is the dumb leading the dumb. What horror.

& there’s no such thing as “Bootstrap magic.” Computers don’t work on magic; they work on this li’l thing called science which is real & works a certain way & if you don’t know that way, you’re going to fuck up. You don’t need to know every li’l detail, but if you go in thinking that it’s just magic that always works ’cause you don’t let technology make you its bitch, you’re going to do a shitty job ’cause you’re clearly an idiot, & idiots have this funny tendency to fuck up, don’t ask me why.

What you are waiting for? Take your skills to the next level right now! Make sure 2015 is the year of changes and great achievement for you!

“It can be yours for only 5 monthly payments if you call 1-800-HACK-JOB in the next 2 minutes—that’s 1-800-HACK-JOB.”

What is your opinion about learning new programming languages versus learning business communication skills and delegating?

I don’t know: you still haven’t ‘splained how to do either, so you’re a fucking failure wherever the coin lands.

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Footnotes:

• [1]‘Cept blander—& when I praise the link repository that is Web Design Depot o’er your site, you know you’ve fucked up.
• [2]Note: I consider programming an art, too.